WAUGkidsWeb
December 6, 2007
Hi!
My name is Sadeeyah Touli. I will be a girl born in 2094, and I won’t be from Tuvalu, but from someplace called St. Louis, in Missouri. I think that’s now in the United States of America, but I’m not sure. Sometimes I have a hard time thinking about my coming life because I’m not born yet. I’m not even an embryo yet! But anyone with a heart cares for me, because I’m going to be a human, just like the humans that are walking around right now thinking, “Hey, I’m alive. That’s everything!” It is important to be alive, but it’s even more important to be someone, period. A lot of not-yet-alive people will be coming along by the year 2094, when I’ll be born. The “alive” people of 2007 have to remember that.
I want to ask all of you alive people of 2007 to think about what you could do to help make my life, and the lives of all of those not-alive-yet people who will inherit the planet Earth in the future, decent and safe.
I’m not here to talk about the morality of terminating a pregnancy. That’s not what troubles me personally, since, if I’m going to be born, no one in my direct line of ancestors will be terminated in the womb or shortly thereafter. I know that’s a highly emotional issue, but what I’m really concerned about is not the “here-and-now” issue a person in 2007 or 2008 faces regarding a pregnancy. I’m thinking of the welfare of all the millions and billions of living people who will occupy the planet in the future.
Imagine for a minute that everyone born in 1980, for example, were places in some magical kind of boat, and they would find some things on the boat pleasant, and some unpleasant. There would be abundant bread, for example, but not enough green vegetables. There would be a lot of chicken, but no beef, and so on. The same with all the other goods like clothes, money, water, and so forth. The supplies would be finite, and would be available in some parts of the ship but not in others. Let’s say that all the people born in 1980 would have teachers and medical doctors and a crew of sailors to sail the ship and tend to their education, health, and so on, but when everyone born in 1980 got to age 70, they would be asked to transfer to another ship, and leave their magical ship open fro people being born in, say, the year 2000.
Those being born in 2000 and just entering the ship would find it had been lived in for a long time, and a lot of the resources on the ship would be missing, right? The ship might be in need of paint, electrical work, new plumbing, and a good scrub-down. It may have to be de-bugged and disinfected. It might seem more crowded than it was when the 1980 people go on it.
Now suppose that they were served by a new group of doctors, sailors, teachers and professors, and so forth, born before them. The same kinds of rules applied as before, but the ship could not be expanded using outside materials. Suddenly the huge Trash Room would be scoured for useful materials. The immense amounts of aluminum foil, plastic bags, foam cups and discarded bottles, cans, newspapers, wrappers, and string would be picked through by enterprising people keen on re-using the materials and perhaps building an annex on the ship to house the wealthier. Perhaps tennis courts and even a modest golf-course would be designed and built from “trash.” This would go on until the born-in-2000 reached age 70, and they would transfer to a different boat and depart for destinations unknown. There would be speculation and even cherished doctrine shared by the people being born in 2020 referring to the nature of life in the mysterious boat that takes away seventy-year-old people, but since no one had ever sailed away and returned, the descriptions of life on the mystery boat were never able to be authenticated, and remained the object of personal or community belief or speculation or simply skepticism or denial. What actually occurred was unknowable by those getting on the 1980, 2000, or 2020 boats, and all those in-between.
Now let’s suppose you are on the boat hosting the Born in 2000 group. If you were perfectly certain that one generation comes after another, and you really had a heart for those will be born in each of the following years, would it make any difference to you how people in your Born in 2000 Group behaved? If you knew the next group coming aboard will have to cope with a diminished store of basic supplies. They will have to find a way to cultivate crops, raise animals, and so on if their generation is to survive, and if they want subsequent generations to have what’s needed.
So it is with this planet, Earth. When I’m born and come of age to look around, I’d really like to be able to look at mountains unmarred by ski slopes, and huge glaciers, and deep, crystal clear lakes; I’d like to wade in rivers filled with spawning salmon, rainbow trout, and fresh water clams.
I’d like to be able to travel to Chile or Argentina without having to worry about solar radiation spoiling my visit as it pours in through a huge hole in the ozone layer.
I’d like to travel to Antarctica and watch the Emperor Penguins play on the ice. I’d like to actually stand on the Arctic Ice Cap and see Polar Bears and seals coming up to breathe, but the way things are going, I’ll never be able to do that because the ice everywhere is missing.
My ancestor’s native Tuvalu will be completely submerged when I’m born, so I’ll have to be somewhere else.
Your newspapers today say the United States and China are deadlocked over who will pay the price for all the disorder caused by climate change. Businesses in the country that has done the most to cause the problem and find technical ways to bring some of this trouble back under control do not want “give away” their technology to poor or developing people so that everyone in the world can have a better chance at having their great-grandchildren live decent lives.
It’s hard for me to see this happening, because it’s people like me and the other What About Us? Generations of kids who will have to breath the bad air, deal with the floods and winds, and the starvation and jealous rivalries that pit one culture against another and end up with bloodshed and terror.
I really would like it, Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. 2007, currently alive, if you would get to work and do something to convince your cousins and nephews, aunt and great-grandmothers to take an active part in convincing your government to cooperate with the Kyoto and other groups in order to make tomorrow, not a more “money making” age, a but a more “livable” age. This is not a matter of life or death as much as it is a question of “will it be worthwhile living is a world of disease, famine, and war?”
Please take me seriously, even though I’m not alive yet. There will be billions like me, and well all need you help now. Tomorrow will be too late!!
Sadeeyah Touli
Descendent of Tuvaluvian people.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment